In Delhi to announce the Digital Unlocked certificate course, Pichai announced the launch of new tools, that would help SMBs get online by creating a website in less than 10 minutes.Pranbihanga Borpuzari | ET Online | January 05, 2017, 11:23 IST

India's digital push has led to a rethink in the level of preparedness and resilience needed to ward of a cyber attack and India's telecom, IT and law ministerRavi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai to play a greater, 'more meaningful' role in countering threats. However, questions remain on the role Google can play in cyber security, if any.

"In a larger push I want Google to be involved in a more meaningful way. The more digital India becomes, there would be challenges. I would appeal to Google to work more to ensure digital security. We have taken a lot of initiatives, but there has to be greater strengthening of the IT walls," said Prasad.

Prasad added that India will become a big hub in the field of digital security and the government is willing to walk the extra mile. "The digital empowering of India may one day become a case study for the world. Digital delivery of India would be a benchmark for the rest of the developing world and that is how we see it. I would appeal to Google to become a part of the change that India is witnessing," he added.

What will be Google's next step?Google is the backbone for the consumer facing Internet services and for a vast majority of the population, being on the Internet is being on Google. However, it is not very clear how Google can play a role in strengthening cyber security.

To suddenly expect Google to become a gatekeeper and determine what is right and wrong seems like a difficult proposition. Also, this would raise questions about revenue generation and driving away customers away by curating content. Google is not a cyber security company and it's helping India get cyber secure is not aligned to its core business.

However, where Google can play a role is to ensure, for example, is ensuring apps on its Play Store are genuine and not malicious in nature. There have been instances when people searching for Pokemon Go have ended up downloading fake apps.

Being secureCyber security was always a cost structure in India, and if one does a Google search on the state of cyber security in India, there would be hardly two or three reports on the subject. Numbers are sketchy and it is only recently that cyber security has suddenly become a mainstream agenda.

In 2015, Prasad told Parliament that as many as 54,483 cyber security incidents such as phishing, spam and malicious code had been reported. The number for 2016 is not immediately known, but would definitely see a spike. The latest incident of Twitter and server hacks by the group Legion has made it amply clear that cyber security cannot be taken lightly.

In Delhi to announce the Digital Unlocked certificate course, Pichai announced the launch of new tools, that would help SMBs get online by creating a website in less than 10 minutes. Prasad lauded Google's effort to get SMBs online and made it amply clear that the Government's digital push is here to stay and it is very serious about it. "We missed the industrial and entrepreneurial revolutions, but we do not want to miss the digital revolution. We want to be the leaders," Prasad said.

Prasad went on to add that Google is as much Indian as its American. "The sheer number of people in India who have accepted you means you have an obligation for India as much as (the) US and the world. Google India needs to tailor its products to Indian psyche and ecosystem. Local languages, local products make good business sense for Google too. India would be a 1 trillion dollar digital economy in the next 3-4 years and it makes business sense for Google to have more India-centric products," Prasad said.